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 Since December 2004, Darlene Thomas has served as the Founder and Executive Director of GreenHouse17, an advocacy organization working to end intimate partner abuse across seventeen central Kentucky counties. With more than thirty-six years of experience in the movement to end power-based violence, Darlene has led efforts in direct service, comprehensive program development, and community engagement for lasting social change. Her leadership includes guiding statewide and national collaborations, offering expert testimony in legal cases, facilitating trainings at local, state, national, and international forums, and consulting with organizations seeking to reimagine their services through innovative, trauma-informed approaches. Under her direction, GreenHouse17 has ...

Join us for a fun meeting with Country Boy Brewing! We'll hear how they started and about their community outreach. And, we'll have a tasting! Daniel “DH” Harrison was born and raised in Scott County, Kentucky. Having attended Georgetown College, DH fell in love with Craft Beer in Japan while teaching English on an exchange program.  Upon returning to the U.S., he partnered with three other native Kentuckians to begin the first taproom model brewery in Lexington in 2012, Country Boy Brewing. DH has been a champion for Craft Beer in Kentucky. Serving on the board of the Kentucky Guild of ...

Since being tabbed Kentucky’s head coach in December 2004, Craig Skinner has rejuvenated the Kentucky volleyball program into national prominence and is the program’s all-time winningest head coach. He will enter his 22nd season in 2026 with an all-time record of 497-157. He reached the pinnacle of the sport in April of 2021, winning the 2020 NCAA National Championship at the CHI Health Center in Omaha, Nebraska, becoming coach of the first volleyball team in Southeastern Conference history to win a national championship. He was named the AVCA’s National Coach of the Year in 2020-21. Skinner has directed the Wildcats to ...

Join us to kick off the new year and hear Dr. Eli Capilouto, President, University of Kentucky Dr. Eli Capilouto became the 12th President of the University of Kentucky on July 1, 2011. Under his leadership, the Commonwealth's flagship and land grant research university has grown from $2.7 billion to nearly $8.6 billion in total operations and has gained significant momentum in advancing Kentucky – the institution’s singular yet multifaceted mission. Since 2011, President Capilouto has led a nearly $7.6 billion transformation of the campus, aimed at enriching the living-learning experience of UK's students, ensuring their success; strengthening the university's research ...

William Shakespeare famously noted in his play As You Like It that “All the world’s a stage.”  Performing for us today on the Rotary “stage” are Lyndy Franklin Smith and Jeremy Smith, co-founders and producing directors of The Lexington Theatre Company (The Lex).  Lyndy and Jeremy (who play a happily married couple in real life!) co-founded The Lex as a way to give back to the community and to the theatre industry. Lyndy enjoyed a successful performance career in New York, appearing in the Broadway companies of A Chorus Line and The Little Mermaid; the Radio City Christmas Spectacular; National Tours ...

Kenny Brooks, who was chosen as the 2025 Sporting News National Coach of the Year, was named the ninth head coach of the University of Kentucky women’s basketball program on March 26, 2024. He enters his sec­ond season as the Wildcats’ head coach in 2025-26, while he enters his 24th season overall as a head coach. Boasting a 540-212 (.718) career record through 23 seasons as a head coach across his times at James Madi­son, Virginia Tech, and Kentucky, Brooks has compiled five Colonial Athletic Association Tournament titles, four CAA regular-season titles, one Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament title, one ACC regular-season ...

Data from the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES; 2022) indicate that bullying and cyberbullying victimization is commonplace for adolescents in the United States today, with approximately 20% experiencing bullying and over 50% cyberbullying during their lifetime. Today’s guest speaker, Professor Alexander T. Vazsonyi, Ph.D., from the University of Kentucky, will lecture on From Hurt to Hope: Can we build bully-free communities in Kentucky and beyond?   An expert on adolescent development with a scholarly record of over 170 peer-reviewed publications, including extensive work on bullying, cyberbullying, and violent behaviors among children and adolescents, Dr. Vazsonyi will spend time (1) defining the ...